


to cherish what remains

by MissKate



Series: to cherish what remains [1]
Category: Elfquest
Genre: F/M, Fuck Or Die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissKate/pseuds/MissKate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sun Village collapses in on itself ten thousand years ahead of schedule, and the Sun Folk retrace their ancestor's route, to settle near a forest, on a patch of ground recently regrown after a fire. Within the woods, however, the Wolfriders watch the strangers settle in, and wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to cherish what remains

<O>

The mountains were like a great hand, holding the tiny oasis between huge fingers. It was held aloft, over a bowl of fire. The elves, having long forgotten the stars their ancestors had come from, had coaxed the water and earth in the palm of the hand into food, and shelter, had tamed the little sand cats in the fingers and, thanks to one brave soul, had turned the strength of the camelids to their own purposes. They had exiled the jackals who had called the wild place home, when it had still been wild, to the other side of the mountains. They had done all this, unaware that the fire beneath their little world was leaping higher, to lick the hand itself.

...

The earth shake was unnerving, but not terribly frightening. Minyah sighed, as carefully stored seeds spilled out of broken pots and mixed together. Zhantee thought of the repairs that would be needed, and began to set some clay aside. Leetah thought of bruises, and began to pull out salves, picking more for scent than use, as her powers would be more than enough to ease any possible aches and pains.

That was the first reaction, to the first quake.

They kept coming. No one knew that the great range of mountains to the south was growing, newborns rising next to the other youthful peaks, or that the mountains around the oasis were old, dying.

There had not been a rockshaper born in generations.

...

The salves fell to the ground, unheeded, as Leetah fled the hut. She could see Minyah, being supported by Zhantee, then her mother and father. Rayek and Ahdri were escorting Savah out of her hut. Leetah, like everyone else, had only a few small treasures, things that you wouldn't want broken in the rubble of a quake. There was fear, but there had been earth shakes before. This was not an enemy, to be destroyed by arrow, or fire. This was only an inconvenience, albeit a frightening one.

“Have you seen ShenShen?” Leetah asked her mother, as she joined her parents.

“She went to see to her patient,” Toorah said, cheerfully unconcerned. “Marek is so far along, she didn't want to risk her going into labour alone.”

“Marek says she thinks the baby is special,” Ruffel laughed as she joined them.

“All mothers say babies are special,” Maleen retorted.

“All babies are special,” Vurdah added, softly.

And with that, the Bridge Of Destiny, where the father of the entire village had shed his skin, to join the stones themselves, trembled and collapsed.

Now there was true fear, terror, outrage. The villagers still didn't panic, but the moves became more urgent. The entire village was out in full force, moving quickly toward the caves on the northern part of the mountain range, careful to give each other space.

Half the village was under the mountains, when the last traces of rockshaper magics, laid generations before anyone had bothered to remember, broke under the relentless shifting of a world that, having a magic of its own, had never really known what to do with the magic of the interlopers. Within moments, there was a deafening silence.

For the first time in most of their lives, the Sun Folk sent. They would, most of them, not do so again for many years.

They sent for lifemates, lovemates, siblings, children, friends. Rayek, without a second thought, raised his hands, filled with magic, and tore into several thousand tons of mountain and rubble. Others ran to the stones, and began to dig through them, without hesitation, pulling aside the stones, working as one on huge, heavy pieces. Savah used, for the first time in generations, the fire magic that had once kindled hearths, explosively destroying the stones that she could, and heating the others to a soft glow. Leetah waited on each survivor, as they were pulled from the earth, all the while hoping for one more, for one more.

...

They didn't lose hope, not even after three days of not finding any survivors, not even when the one remaining fresh spring began to shrink, while oiled silks were converted to emergency canteens, not even when the mountains shifted, and crumbled a bit more, throwing down a few more rocks on the pile. They didn't lose hope until the scent of decay began to rise up from the stones, and even then they pulled half-heartedly at a few rocks before giving up.

They spent the rest of the day salvaging what could be found, sorting it, and waiting for Savah to speak.

“My children,” she said, as the moons rose. “We have been sheltered by the stones of Sorrow's End, as a child remains in the arms of the mother.

“We have known it was not always so. What we have not known was that it would not always be so.

“This, which was our home, has thrown us out, into the greater world. Now we have a choice. Shall we flutter, like songbirds too soon sent from the nest? Or shall we fly, like hawks, out into the world, sure of our wings?”

There was a soft voiced murmur of approval. Of course, the Sun Folk would approve of anything that the Mother of Memory said, if she was the one who said it, Leetah though, an uncharitable thought, a little like Rayek whispering in her ear. Rayek himself was seated on the rocky ridge that led out of what remained of the little oasis, staring out into the desert. She could not see his face, but she imagined it was the same blankness that had followed the earthquake.

“Where could we go?” Leetah hadn't meant to speak so plainly. But the moons shone out over a desolate world, and cast the fallen mountains into deep shadows, and she was terrified to leave even those shadows and go out into the bare desert. “There is still some water, here, there's food. Beyond the mountains, what is there?”

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Minyah spoke.

“The Green Growing Place,” she said, in a reverent whisper. “The place of our ancestors.”

“And humans,” Leetah objected. “The same that drove you and your family out into the desert, Savah.”

Every child heard the story, as soon as they were old enough to ask questions, of the five fingered, round eared ones.

“I won't live in fear!” It was so sudden, and so unexpected, considering the source, that Leetah put her hand to her head to check for fever, as Zhantee leapt to his feet. “Forgive me, all of you, but the last well spring grows smaller each day. And the jackals' cries grow louder in the night. But I won't be afraid. Stay or go, things will change. I will change, too.”

There were murmurs of agreement, and the air changed.

“We have zwoots now,” Maleen agreed. “And water jugs, and skins.”

“We have proper clothes,” Ahnshen added.

“And we have the strength of numbers,” Rayek spoke, unexpectedly. He stood up on the ridge now, arms spread wide. “Humans, jackals, or beasts beyond imagining. I have seen the strength of my people, and I know that we can fight whatever lies beyond the desert, and more, we can fight the desert itself!”

He stopped, panting, as if he had shocked even himself with his outburst.

“Well said,” Savah praised him, then turned to her people. “I know the way to return to the Green Growing Place, my children. It is in the shadow of a great rock wall, a small opening between stones. We can make it in a few days. What lies beyond will be our new home.”

Leetah looked around her. No one was, precisely, happy, but there was a shift, from ennui to action, as if the very fact of planning to grow made them more alive.

...

It was almost as easily said as done. The zwoots that had fled in the quake had already returned to familiar grazing grounds, and they had even brought company. Maleen and Zhantee, and others soon, as though spurred by Rayek's words, had begun to shadow the hunter, and if he lost his temper for their lack of skill from time to time, he also soon praised their quick minds, and quick feet. Ahnshen cut blankets and tanned hides to make clothes that would keep out the sun during the day, and warm them at nights, and tents to hide them from the sun.

Leetah wondered if the time seemed to pass so quickly because she still had so many who were sick or wounded to tend. Then there were the heartsick, so broken by the quake, yet with bodies that were completely well.

Then one morning she awakened, and was loaded behind Ahdri, onto a waiting zwoot, as if she had even been so much baggage. She looked, as long as she could, as the sun beat down, back to the mountains, and thought she saw, on the last remaining hill, a small figure, shining curls caught up in pigtails, waving to them.

...

Kirah was dead. She had not fully recovered from her lifemate's loss, or her only child's, and had not eaten since the quake. Broth and water could do only so much, and she had drifted away in the night.

She wasn't the only one. Some had been lost before they even left. And the losses were so great that only the most half hearted wails of mourning were released, as if grief had taken even that.

Leetah watched them lay Kirah on her side, curled up as if she were in the womb, and felt envious.

“It's not,” she whispered to Rayek, long after nightfall. “It's not that I want to be dead.”

His grip on her waist tightened, and she shifted.

“I can't breathe,” she complained, trying to keep her voice soft, in the walls of a tent that didn't keep out even the lightest desert night breezes. He drew away, and if she had not had her healer's senses, she would have thought him gone.

“Last night I thought I heard her calling me,” she told him, feeling tears creep up her throat to choke her. “I went to take her a blanket. I could not bear for her to be cold, under the ground.”

Rayek reached out and stroked her hair. She was grateful, especially knowing comfort was not his way. He would have fought a dozen monsters to keep her from tears. He did not know how to let her have them, but did his clumsy best.

That had been their last joining. Now they spoke sparingly, and, to the great discomfort of the Villagers, met awkwardly. Rayek filled his time with teaching Maleen, Zhantee, and some others, how to hunt. Leetah filled hers with trying to keep Kiro from following his sister.

They were growing apart. She couldn't stop it. Worse yet, she feared she didn't want to. Rayek, for once, had a drive outside his powers and his desire to possess her. He seemed happier now, part of the Sun Folk in a way he never had been before. She was the one on the outside now, precious, but apart from her people.

...

A strange hush fell over them, as they rounded the edges of the cliffs, which had fallen away piece by piece until opening here. The sand grew darker, bits of soil poking through, and tough, spiny grasses clung to the bits of dirt stubbornly. The cliffs revealed themselves as hills, with half of their breadth fallen away, in some ancient cataclysm. Ahdri shivered, and reached for Leetah's hand.

Savah smiled, and urged her mount forward.

“I recall this place.” She gestured to the thickening grasses. “Once the desert even expanded into the hills here, but now it is green.”

It seemed harsh against the remembered lushness of Sorrow's End, but compared to the desert, the hills were full of growth. Rayek took his hunters, and came back with a small pronghorned animal.

“It was Maleen's spear,” he shrugged when complimented, the first humility that Leetah remembered from him in a long time. “They were too swift for the rest of us.”

They remembered the meat for long afterwards. It was their last, and food supplies were running low. The grasslands became richer, greener, but strangely empty. Days went by subsisting on the last of Maleen's pronghorn, then nothing but water, and even that was running out.

“Here!”

It had been days since they'd found water, or food, and skins were emptying rapidly. Days since they'd set foot out onto the open grassland. Vurdah came back to them with a writhing bundle in her skirt. She sat down among them, the small group trying to decide if they would take one of the zwoots away and slit its throat quietly.

The white grubs spilled over the edges of the skirt, and Leetah gagged. Rayek winced, but picked one up, and swallowed it without hesitation. Leetah took his hand, their first touch since leaving the desert.

He was fine. More than fine, as his body ate into it, the fuel flooded the rest of him quickly. Leetah reluctantly picked one up, and swallowed as quickly as she could. Others, who chewed, claimed the meat was sweet, but most followed her lead.

Afterwards, Vurdah took them to the log she had overturned in finding the grubs. There they found lizards and toads, and Leetah surprised herself by leaping upon a mid-sized rodent and stilling its heart and brain.

She ate lizard that night, though, with some of the roots that Savah had dug with her own hands from the damp earth.

“Soon, I think,” Savah said, happily. “The sun will warm the earth until the grasses all fall away under a coat of new green.”

“Like Flood and Flower?” Ruffel asked, head in Maleen's lap.

“Something like that,” Savah agreed. “But the flowers last longer, and the green doesn't fade until late in the year.”

“Here,” Vurdah sat down beside Leetah and Kiro, holding a handful of rodent. Leetah watched as Kiro turned his head listlessly, as if he didn't truly see Vurdah.

Then, he did. His head shot up, and he stared at her. Leetah felt the change in him, and knew what it precipitated, and smiled into her food, as he and Vurdah left, and a toddler marched up and took their leftovers. Everyone, suddenly wise to what had occurred, laughed at her, then made her share with the other children.

...

The woods loomed large, even larger than Leetah had dared to imagine, and more alien than anything she had ever seen before.

Green, so many shades of green it dizzied the eyes. Even the trunks of the trees were green, even the few visible flowers had a pale, alien tint. Leetah turned aside.

“There's ash under here,” Minyah said. “That's good for planting.”

A good natured argument arose, one that they had had before, in a hollow on the plains. Rayek had finally won that one when a pack of snakes came slithering through, by pointing out their nesting grounds.

There was no such nesting ground here. There was a large pool of water nearby, Savah called it a lake, and Zhantee and Korek had already declared the clay at its edge fit for brickmaking. The plants that Savah declared fit to eat grew in a good, if not quite bounteous, supply.

It was a good place to begin anew. To put down seeds, and grow roots.

But Leetah stared at the forest, and couldn't quite shake the feeling something was waiting within.

...

Scouter was more cautious than Dewshine, mindful of the elders and their stories of round ears, and evil magics, and even strange, singing elves that were neither of this world, or another. He was careful, clung to his parents' hands longer than Dewshine, who teased him mercilessly, and adored him fiercely. If not for Dewshine, Scouter wouldn't have done half the things he did.

If not for Dewshine, he certainly wouldn't have been in the tallest tree right then.

It was odd, he thought, for someone who was supposedly a far-seeing prodigy, to prefer the night to the day. But the light of the sun seemed to obstruct his vision, and the moon's were much softer, allowing subtle greys to show through.

Not that greys were needed now.

**Fire!** He sent to Dewshine, pointing as she turned, one hand still on the branch below.

“That's where the human village used to be!” She exclaimed. “What in the name of the High Ones?”

...

 

It was a blessing to be needed, she thought, as she knelt in the dirt with Mother, despite the rest of the Sun Folk trying to hurry her away, mindful of her status as their only healer. Every hand was turned to the hoped for harvest, in the dirt that Minyah declared as rich as any she had ever seen, despite the black ash that coated it, and the burned remnants of trees and bushes, ready for child's teeth and gourds and every other seed they had managed to salvage from the great earthshake. Even Savah insisted in helping in whatever way she could, and parents, mindful of the great forest that lay temptingly beyond the huts, left their little ones in her care. Savah, taking her role as teacher and caregiver very seriously, took the children into the forest herself, to gather the plants she remembered from her ancient childhood.

Leetah thought she understood, a little, Savah's insistence on making herself more than the beloved resolver of disputes and leader of ceremony. To be useful, to hand a drink to the tired mother, to make the weary father laugh, to be useful, was to forget the dull emptiness inside her. She fell asleep, exhausted by planting and building, not reaching for the hand that was no longer there.

...

It was hard to say what the newcomers were doing. They seemed to be much like humans, superficially, with brown skin, and a love of daylight. Other than that, and their skin houses, they were quite different, digging in the dirt, and playing with clay from the lake, to the point of using it to make blocks.

They seemed to have no idea what to eat, seeking out animals on the plains, and gathering strange plants, edible, but much less palatable than that which the Wolfriders ate.. They had an elder who towered over the rest, prompting Pike to send dreamberry soaked memories of elders long dead, close in age to the High Ones. Scouter observed her gentle looks, and dubbed her the “Tall Mother”. Other notables included a black haired hunter who led a clumsy, unskilled group onto the plains, far, at least, from their own hunting grounds, a blind elf with a pink cloaked lifemate, and a tall dirt digger who apparently wasn't a tree shaper.

...

“That's all we can do for now!” Minyah said, cheerfully. She had set aside her great straw basket for a lighter, round hat, woven of the multi-coloured grasses that ringed their new village. “Now, just the weeding and the watching, but if our luck holds, we'll harvest in time to plant again.”

“Don't think you're getting away from work with the gardening being finished,” Korek said, cheerfully, as he passed them by, with an armful of clay and straw. “We still need at least ten more houses, maybe more!”

He punctuated the last with a nod to Vurdah and Kiro, both of whom laughed, still newly flush with Recognition. Theirs was the first of four such in as many moons, since they had come out upon the plains and into the woods. Even Ingen and Jarrah had finally set about to give Rayek a younger sibling of some kind. It was as though some power from nature had set out to restore what the great smoking mountain had taken.

But Toorah and Sun Toucher.

Leetah glanced at her mother. She had, cautiously, awkwardly, offered her “services” to her parents, but the conversation had died in all their throats, and she had finished it with apologies. They hadn't spoken of it since.

“The zwoots have been growing in a thicker coat,” Ahnshen said, idly, at the dinner hut. “It's long enough to spin, now.”

“Oh?” Leetah, who had once sparkled at every meal, felt stupid and tongue-tied.

“That will be wonderful,” Ruffel said, huddling deeper into the blanket she habitually wore by nights. “I would welcome some new clothes, indeed.”

“Yes,” Maleen agreed, then sighed. “But I suppose there won't be any dyes.”

It seemed the most inconsequential, ridiculous complaint, but Leetah was glad for it.

“Surely not,” she protested. “There are berries, in the woods, aren't there? And mosses? Would those do?”

“Indeed they would, child,” Savah looked pleased at the interruption, and set down her bowl of thin soup, with only hunks of meat and the wild herbs she and her pupils had gathered. “In fact, I saw such lichens this day. I shall ask young Lutei to climb and fetch them for me tomorrow. They make a fine, dark green.”

“And for being the first to suggest it, healer, you will be the first to wear my new cloth.”

Cloth of a fine green, perhaps with the glimmer of gold threads running through, red and gold accents. She shuddered, but smiled, and nodded.

The night air was cool, and sweet, wet with dew. She did not often use her own gifts upon herself, but she steadied her stomach as she walked back to the hut she shared with her parents. They had so little food. Nothing could be wasted.

...

Nightfall hated to leave her lifemate. Six moons on, and with the blossom of his treeshaping powers, Redlance's breath remained precious and laboured, his movements slow and pained. Even on Firecoat, he had to cling to a makeshift harness, lest he lose a shaky grip.

But Cutter remained certain that the newcomers required watchfulness, and she was the great-grandcub of one of the far-seeing scouts from the distant past and had some of their gift in her owl's eyes.

It was an idle task, in a slightly adjusted eagle's nest that had seen its last use in Bearclaw's reign. She carved little animals for Newstar and Dart to play with, and watched the new elves disinterestedly. Some small part of her was still with Redlance, and she could feel him shaping a berry bush to bring fruit out of season. One of the digging elves planted a row of seeds and Nightfall smirked, thinking of how easily her lifemate could bring forth plants even in the dead of winter.

The Tall Mother was instructing some cubs in new things today. Not the few roots and small plants the strangers chose over the more obvious and inviting plants, troll's beard this time, in one of the high branches of the trees. Nightfall watched the cub, nearly as nimble as Dart, or even Newstar, scramble up to the lichen. She wondered, idly, if they planned to eat it, making a face. She had mistakenly drunk from one of Moonshade's dye pots as a cub, and could still taste the sour bitterness. Cutter had called her “troll mouth” for months.

The cub threw down some of the plant, then some more, looking almost like a squirrel, or a tree wee. Nightfall covered her mouth, lest her giggles betray her.

The cubs on the ground were excited, hopping around like baby ravvits, gathering up the lichen as it fell. The climber went higher and higher after the stuff, even as the Tall Mother tried to calm everyone down.

The branch snapped so suddenly that Nightfall thought at first she had been mistaken. Then the cub fell, landing on one leg with a sickening snap. Nightfall stilled herself from running to help. After all, even though he wailed like a human baby, he wasn't likely to die. And the tall one gathered him so gracefully into her arms, it was like watching Rainsong with Wing.

She settled back into the nest, and nearly missed the shouts from the village.

“Healer! Healer!”

She sat straight up, and stared, as a maiden of fire and new green ran from a small hut near the gardens, and bent over the cub.

She almost didn't believe her eyes.

The cub stopped crying in moments. Then he raised himself off the ground, hugged the firemaiden, and ran off, laughing.

Nightfall shook herself, and climbed down the tree, jumping half the way. The sun would be down soon, and the strangers would go into their clay and stick homes. She could have Redlance here before anyone knew it, even in the holt.

She just had to hurry.

...

When they first told her of it, Leetah hadn't wanted the new hut next to the gardens, but the others had insisted.

“The Sun Folk need to have some things stay as they were, kitling,” her mother had told her, as they moved her few belongings in. “It makes them think things, well, that things are going to be well.”

And it wasn't all bad. It was lonely from time to time. Without her mother and father time seemed slower, but she filled it by gathering the few herbs she could recognize, the ones that, well, that Shen Shen had gathered before, and made her keep, in honey and fat beneath her hut, against the day that her powers would no longer be enough.

So it was occasionally lonely, as it had been that night with Rayek, and she heard, in dreams and waking, that great cry of her name, but she was content to wake, and weep, and sleep again.

But sleep was disturbed by a whisper this time.

“Healer!”

She frowned, warm, for once, and tired.

“Healer!”

“It'd better be an emergency,” she mumbled.

“Healer, please!”

She sighed, and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “If Vurdah's fluttering over her baby kicking a-”

She trailed off as she saw the two seated next to her.

They were as pale as the grubs that Vurdah had unearthed on the plains, dressed in leathers as fine and soft as mothcloth, with accents of fur and feather. The maiden was, despite the obvious deformity of her skin, clearly strong and healthy. The lad, on the other hand, had clearly seen better days.

Leetah had only seconds to see this. The maiden put a gentle, but firm hand on her lips.

“Please don't say anything!” She pleaded. “We're not supposed to be here, but.”

She glanced over her shoulder, to where the other elf's face had taken on a startled and somewhat disapproving cast.

“We need your help, healer,” the maiden murmured. “Please, I beg of you.”

Leetah pushed the hand aside.

“No need for that,” she said, crisply.

She pushed aside her blankets, and motioned for the lad to lie down. He did so cautiously, clearly uncertain as to the construction of her bed.

“My name is Leetah,” she had never had to introduce herself to a patient before, but he smiled, so she supposed it had seemed friendly enough.

“I'm Redlance,” he said. “And the fussing hen is Nightfall.”

Nightfall made a wetly scoffing noise, clearly on the verge of tears.

Leetah examined him, at first no more than skin deep. The injuries were old, months old. Broken bones, and bruised organs, some ribs pressed into lungs at wrong angles. The skin, as it happened, was not a deformity, but their natural colouring. His heart laboured to beat, and his hands and feet were mildly damaged by the slow flow of the blood. Time had done all it could. Where time failed, she would complete the work.

It was then, as she shifted bones, pushed blood where it should be, fed the heart and the brain, she felt it. A twist in the very making of him, unlike anything she had ever seen before. It conferred sturdiness, strong senses, better balance, but the cost was inconceivable to an elf who, until only months ago, had considered her six centuries of life a mere beginning. At some point this mutation would turn on him, begin to tear his body apart, until it killed him.

She had dealt with such things before. The cataracts in her father's eyes, which returned, no matter how fiercely she drove them out, the sun burning past many a villager's flesh, into their bones.

Nothing compared to this. It was too deeply part of him. Removing it might kill him, finishing the job that-

A sudden, sickening realization tore into her, as the pattern of his ancient wounds fell into place, just as she finished. It eclipsed even the discovery of the mutation itself, which jogged something in her mind.

“These wounds,” she smoothed out a final scar. “They were-They were deliberately inflicted?”

She could not believe her own words. Nightfall had already taken Redlance into her arms, laid her head upon his chest, and was listening to his heart, the heart Leetah had made to beat fiercely again. That left Redlance to answer.

“It was humans,” was all he said. “They caught me in the woods, they wanted to kill me. I was rescued by my chief.”

“And now rescued again by you!” Nightfall had released Redlance, and now took up Leetah's hands, much to the healer's dismay, as her still open powers detected the same horrific mutation in the maiden. “You have my life, Leetah. I have no way to thank you.”  
Leetah tried to tell her there was no need, but one look into Nightfall's eyes told her the truth. Had Redlance finally died of his wounds(and he might have), then Nightfall would have simply been as a walking corpse, as Kirah had been. It was something no healer could mend. Some died of it, but others had recovered, and still more would recover. With time.

But Nightfall might not have such time, when Redlance finally died. She would likely follow, willing or not.

“It was my duty.” it was a weak response, but she had nothing better.

“I'm sorry,” Nightfall said, as Leetah accompanied them out of the hut. “I must ask a final favour. Our chief has forbidden us to enter your village, or speak to you. Please,” she took Leetah's hands again. “We'll try to persuade him that your people are friends, but you must promise in the meantime to say nothing of us to anyone.”

Leetah, still overwhelmed, promised.

“Your people planted these,” Redlance commented, looking out on the gardens, and the first little seedlings.

Leetah nodded, proudly, for some of the rows were hers. “Minyah is our best gardener, and she promises we will have two harvests, if the weather holds.”

“You will,” Redlance said, then, with a mischievous grin, he waved his arms.

The seedlings burst forth, as if the sun were shining upon them instead of the rain, growing with a fierce goodwill. The child's teeth swayed above Leetah's head in moments, the gourds burst open into flowers for the bees to dance in, and everything else blossomed into a summer moment.

“How?” Leetah was interrupted by a sudden bump at her elbow.

She was too shocked to be frightened by the interrupter, a tall, red beast, which fawned at her, as though it understood what had just transpired in the darkness of her hut. There was another half hidden in the shadows, paler, that showed grace in its heavy form as it circled around to get to Nightfall. Something in the touch of the red one stirred familiarly within her.

“Firecoat, don't bother her,” Redlance scolded the creature. Then he and Nightfall mounted the creatures, and, with a final wave, disappeared in the moonlight.

It was only later, in the darkness, with friendly stars peeping through a curtain of grass, that Leetah realized what she had felt in the animal. A twist, conferring upon it a longer lifespan, a greater mental capacity. The answer to what she had felt within Redlance's body.

...

There was no way to hide the nearly ready harvest, so all Leetah did when questioned was shrug her shoulders and tell everyone, honestly, that she had heard nothing.

“It's a blessing from the High Ones,” Minyah exclaimed, gathering the child's teeth and red fruit and fire fruit and beans and goodroots with abandon. “A sign from our ancestors, telling us we've come to the right place.”

“Of course it is,” Savah agreed.

“There's magic in it,” Rayek hissed to Leetah, later, after he and Maleen and the others had returned from their hunt. “You're sure you heard nothing?”

“I have no idea what made the plants grow,” she told him, honestly.

He looked pained.

“Leetah.”

She smiled at him, trying to look herself again. But she hadn't been that laughing, teasing lovemate for a long time, and though he smiled back, there was something lost in it.

The euphoria of healing Redlance was over, leaving only another grief.

The brush with Firecoat had explained where the mutation had come from. At some point in the far distant past, someone in their tribe had lain with the beasts, perhaps not even knowing what they had doomed their children to. Now the blood gave their descendants sturdiness, heightened senses, the ability to catch a bird in flight, and a long sentence of death. Even if Nightfall and Redlance were her friends, they would be only a moment in her long life. A moment to be lost.

Yet, there had been true love and joy shared in that brief moment in her hut.

...

Cutter hadn't spoken to her in three days. She wasn't used to his wrath, had never been, even as a cub. Their quarrels had only been minor. But now the easy touch they had shared was rebuffed at every turn.

Yet, looking at Redlance, watching him stand straight, run a little further everyday, and wrestle with Firecoat as he had used to do, she could not say she was sorry.

“They haven't done anything yet.” That was Redlance, who was considered less at fault and therefore not subject to quite so much wrath. Not to mention everyone was so happy to see him well that they were ready to forgive almost anything. “I believe her vow. If you'd just speak to her-”

“Enough!” Cutter snapped the twig he'd been bending in half. Strongbow, who'd clearly been about to ask to use it for an arrow, made a face.

“They're elves, aren't they?” That, surprisingly, was Moonshade. “They speak our words, they heal, just like Rain. There's that one with the lifting powers, our ancient legends speak of such things.”

“But they dig in the dirt and stay out in the sun, as humans do.” Cutter said, although there was a note in his voice that told Nightfall he might like to be dissuaded from his current course. “They're nothing like us.”

The near forest fire that had wiped out the small human tribe had shaken Cutter to his core. Redlance's failure to recover fully had left a wound in the tribe that time could not heal. The hopeful had watched Wing and Newstar for signs of Rain's powers, and waited for Pike to Recognize, or Rainsong and Woodlock to perform another miracle. But nothing came, and optimism sank, leaving everyone waiting, for the time when the laboured heart would cease to beat, and the son of treeshapers would join his Ancestors in the Father Tree. Perhaps he might Recognize before then.

So to have it proven wrong drew even the most embittered soul into the moonlight, full of happiness, half fearful, half eager to meet, for the first time in the memory of every elder there, and all those who had passed before, elves who were not Wolfriders, or High Ones.

But Cutter still felt the wound of the near loss of Redlance. Even the unexpected and almost miraculous Recognition between Clearbrook and One Eye a mere six moons' dances ago had not shaken it. He was more cautious, no one was to leave the holt save on his orders, more quick to anger. He allowed only grudging trade with the trolls, and kept eyes in the tallest tree for the arrival of more humans than those whose bones rested beneath the grass that had covered the ashes of the human portion of the forest.

Nightfall remembered the sure, optimistic cubling of her youth, and felt a pang.

“Our earliest stories tell that the elves who came before the days of Skyfire did the same,” Pike offered, his usual joviality replaced with the confidence that came with being Howlkeeper. “We only put it aside when the last of them died.”

“They don't seem like humans in their ways,” Moonshade murmered, her eyes distant with a soft pain.

**They might be as soft as ravvits,** Strongbow added. **But they are elves.**

It was this, from the most conservative of the Elders, that persuaded Cutter.

“I'll go,” he said. “Alone. I'll talk to their healer.”

“Alone,” he repeated, when he saw Skywise about to mount Starjumper.

“Oh, no,” Skywise shook his head, mock stern. “No one goes anywhere alone, Cutter.”

Cutter glared at the stargazer, but the impish smile he got in return seemed to tell him something.

“Fine,” he conceded. “But you're not going near them. You're staying in the trees.”

Skywise grinned. Then he opened his mouth, and they bickered until they were out of earshot.

...

It had taken some convincing, but Skywise was ensconced sulkily in a tree on the outskirts of the village, with Scouter, who was mostly confused by the entire enterprise. The Stargazer sent little grumbles through the air, but Cutter ignored those.

The little hut that the healer lived in had grasses over the doorway, and the small openings on the walls. Cutter was used to pushing his way through branches and leaves, and couldn't quite suppress the hushing noise the dead plants made as he pushed through them. He froze once inside, waiting for the inevitable alarm, but the maiden in the sleeping place didn't even stir.

He shook her awake, and leapt to some darkened corner. She sat straight up, covering her mouth.

“Nightfall?” She whispered. “Is that you? Is something wrong?”

Cutter decided to speak.

“Nightfall says you swore to her you wouldn't tell anyone about us.”

The maiden was dressed, strangely enough since she was sleeping, wearing some roughly woven tunic that was joined at the shoulders, and then roughly stitched down the sides. Moonshade, he thought, would have been ashamed of it.

“I did,” she drew herself up with a great dignity, sitting straight up on the side of her bed. “There was no need for it. We mean no harm-”

“I'll be the judge of that,” he scoffed. Her brows drew together, and she pursed her pretty lips.

“What are you doing in our woods?”

“We aren't in the woods,” she pointed out, coolly. “We're on the edge of the woods.”

“It's our territory,” he informed her. “As far as you can see from the Tallest Tree belongs to us.”

“Oh?” She raised an arch eyebrow. “But I'm sure you can see we have no warriors, no great weapons. Why not tell us to leave? Or drive us out?”

He growled, low, but she ignored him, smiling triumphantly.

“You have no intentions of doing so,” she informed him. “Or you would have done so already. Instead you've helped us. Minyah says the harvest will come quickly enough to allow for two more.”

“That was Redlance's payment for your help,” He informed her, but she ignored him.

“We are of one race,” she informed him. “Despite our difference. We are like a pitcher of water, poured into two cups.”

He glared at her, before speaking, motioning to a handful of plants he'd left on the floor.

“Your people don't know anything about food,” he informed her. “These are safe to eat.”

...

**Sounded like that went well,** Skywise sent, as he climbed back out the hut-hole. **If you like foul-mannered trolls who don't bathe nearly enough.**

Cutter ignored him with the ease of long practice.

...

“I'm a healer,” Leetah said, coolly. “I tested them on myself, after seeing animals eat them.”

It was partially true. She had tested them on herself, but they had all proven to be harmless, and almost universally palatable. This story was proving slightly harder to sell than the harvest.

“How wonderful,” Savah said, examining them all. “These are unfamiliar to me, so we must be in a very different forest than my childhood home.”

“You tested them on yourself?” Rayek demanded, glowering.

“I am the healer,” Leetah said, keeping his glare. “Who else would have been better?”

“I forbid it,” Rayek snapped.

Leetah felt a cool rage fill her stomach, “You... Forbid?”

“Forbid our only healer to risk herself?” Rayek could make even a whisper seem like a shout. “Yes, I forbid it.”

“It was my choice-” Toorah interrupted her.

“Your choice could have endangered all our lives, kitling,” she said, gently. “Suppose one of them had been poisonous, and too fast even for you to stop? A wild animal attack, a fever, another disaster, these could have spelled disaster for us.”

She had to pretend to submit, in the face of this logic, though she made as if she did so with ill grace.

The food supplies had been vastly augmented by the harvest that Redlance had blessed, but the new forest foods were equally welcome, adding a new piquancy to meals. Better yet, they were all in the sparse brush near the village, where anyone could gather them.

Not so Cutter's next gift.

Some fever had taken a full third of the village. Leetah worked day and night, but could only keep them alive, not free them from its grip.

Even my powers, she thought, have limits. I can do no more than wait, and hope.

She thought of that great cry, and all the others like it, as at last the magic that had shaped her home had lost its war against the forces of the world itself. Just as she had lost the war she had fought for all her many eights of years, against death itself, in the death of the mountains. Just as she was destined to lose it against the twist in Redlance and Nightfall's blood.

She had taken to walking through the forest, not usually to stray far, when hours spent over tossing, delirious patients did no more than relieve the symptoms of so many ill. Where the trees had seemed to shelter a terrifying darkness when they had first arrived, now all within was cool and green. The waiting feeling was still there, but it began to feel comforting, as though it welcomed her in, asking her where she had been all this time.

“That silly skirt of yours does nothing but make noise and catch on things.”

She jumped, and left off trying to free her skirts from a branch. Once again her visitor was in shadows, nearly invisible save for the gleam of his eyes.

“What good is all your stealth, if all you use it for is to frighten the life out of maidens?” She retorted.

He grumbled, and somehow remained in the shadows, even as he freed her from the bush.

“You're making more noise than a bear. You're lucky it was me that found you, instead of a long-tooth.”

“A long-tooth?” She asked. Suddenly the forest was a bit less welcoming.

“They usually stay out on the plains, but we've had some young ones making their way through here recently.”

“Oh,” she looked around. “What are they?”

“Eh?” He shrugged. “Big. Half the size of one of your beasts, but more graceful. They have big paws, filled with claws. And teeth as long as your arm.”

She should never have left the village. She should never have left her hut. She tried to draw closer to the chief, without being noticeable, then had to stifle a shriek as one of the huge beasts his people rode pushed bluffly against her, as if pleased that she had noticed him.

“Did you think he was a long-tooth?” The chief asked, chuckling. “That's Nightrunner. He leads the pack. My wolf-friend.”

“Nightrunner.” Leetah let the wolf sniff, then lick her hand. “And what is his ill-mannered companion called?”

The stranger stiffened. Then relaxed with a silent laugh.

“Cutter. Chief to the Wolfriders.”

Wolfriders. A strange, but practical name.

“I know you are Leetah,” he continued. “What I don't know is why you're in the forest. It belongs to us.”

“So you told me,” she rejoined. “But I take by your words that you have conceded the plains to us.”

“Why not?” He asked, airily. “They're no use to us. Poor game and too much sunlight.”

Rayek and his hunters had brought meat home everyday since they had arrived on the edge of the woods, but it explained their odd skin colour, to catch the light where it could, rather than to protect the body within from it. Still, he seemed so like one of the sand cats that had followed them from the village that Leetah had to hide her smile at his youthful pretended dignity.

“What are you doing out here, anyhow?” He asked her.

“I thought the healer would be with the sick,” he continued. “But I saw how many there were.”

They continued in silence for a moment.

“There are too many for you, aren't there?” He asked, softly.

She nodded, shamed.

The silence pooled between them again, broken by her rustling skirts, and the sticks that broke beneath her feet.

He seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and, taking her by the waist, tossed her up on Nightrunner's back.

“Hold tight, okay?”

They ran, as swift as thought, through the leaves and the twigs of the forest, through dangling lichens and vines, Cutter and the wolf taking fallen logs and streams in their stride. Leetah first clutched the thick fur on the ruff of Nightrunner's neck in terror, then, gradually, bit by bit, she felt her legs loosen. The wind tugged at her hair, swung her earrings in heavy loops, and she surprised herself, and, she thought, Cutter, by laughing out loud.

Then the air grew wetter, and wetter, the distinct smells of rotten vegetation and green growing things looming large, and the soft whisper of music in the night. They rounded a tree, and suddenly, water pooled lazily around uplifted roots, under great green leaves, and over the water, sparks of light floated, occasionally darting down to mirror themselves in the pond.

“Do I dream?” She asked Cutter. “Or have the stars come down to dance upon the water?”

“Skywise calls them star cousins,” Cutter told her, looking around the edge of the pool. “They're fireflies. Bugs that glow. This is how they look when they're seeking mates.”

Leetah stared at them, the thick cloud of glowing things, some of which flew so near she could reach out and almost touch them. There was a noise, too, music, perhaps.

“Pipes?” she asked Cutter, who laughed. There was moonlight, and she could see that his skin was as pale as Nightfall's, and his hair was as white as new corn. He tossed back his head and laughed, and she could see he had fine, strong white teeth. All in all, save for his skin, he was not unappealing.

“Whistling leaves,” he explained.

He knelt at a small green patch of ground near the stagnant water. With a single slash of his shining blade, he cut an armful of fleshy, green plants. He deposited the mess in her hands, and she had to make a basket of her skirt for them.

“You make them into a poultice,” he explained. “Or make the sick one eat them, in case of a fever. They cleanse the body of the sickness. We use them when there's infection, or foaming sickness. They don't work for everything, but they're good for this.”

Leetah stared at him. They were resourceful, these small, mortal elves, so different from her folk. Perhaps not so tall, or so graceful, perhaps destined to die, but they had been made for this Green Growing Place, just as hers had been made for-For whatever they were now. A conundrum to be solved in the same leisurely way they had solved every other one.

“Your folk might have an easier time of it,” he continued, putting more leaves into her skirt. “You could put the leaves in your stewing pot. That's what the trolls do. They boil it into mush and drink the juice.”

Leetah touched his hand. He stared at it, silent.

“Thank you.”

He looked at his blade, then turned to the swamp, and the now leafless patch of ground.

“They grow back,” he said, softly. “And we have enough for now.”

They went back to her village, silently. The euphoria of the previous ride had vanished. All that was left was the unfamiliar gait of the wolf, and the fragile peace between them.

When they returned, he reached up, and plucked her from the wolf's back, as if she were thistledown. She couldn't help but stare at him as he did. She had never seen him, she thought, so closely as she had now. He was well-formed, indeed, though shorter than the average Sun Villager, but his eyes, his bright blue eyes, like the afternoon sky had come down to rest in them.

She took all this in, and, suddenly, she felt a sound, a word, begin to beat within her like a drum.

_Tam. Tam._

“Half leaves, half water,” he told her. “At least, that's what Old Maggotty does.”

“Tam,” she could not help but speak the word, no, the name. It was as if everything she had ever been lacking had been found in that sound.

But when she reached her hands out to him, he drew away, eyes wide with horror.

“My soulname? How do you-”

“What is that?” she asked, only idly curious. “Oh, Tam, don't you feel it?”

“No,” he snapped. “No, it can't be. I would have known it. I would have heard your name.”

She laughed. “You have heard it.”

“No, your soul's name, Leetah.” he stared at her, and suddenly, she was drowning in those blue eyes, overwhelmed by them. There was the howling of wolves, and the laughter of the windstorm.

“You don't-” his face twisted with disgust. “You don't have one?”

He was gone. She was alone with a pile of leaves, nearly in the village itself. Stupidly, she made her way to her hut, her little stove, and her small pots. In moments, she had begun to make a tea, as Cutter had described it.

All the while, the “ _Tam_ ” repeated in her heart.

...

If anyone wondered where the brew had come from, they did not ask. Perhaps out of gratitude. Everyone recovered. What the leaves began, with a ferocious evacuation of stomachs that frightened her, she was able to finish, spreading out her healing powers. First, the children, who had succumbed the most fiercely, with little Shushen nearly losing his battle, then everyone else's fevers and aches and pains.

She lied to herself, told herself that Cutter had simply left to allow her time to ensure the Village's health. It was surprisingly easy to believe.

As she worked, she sometimes spiraled into troubled thoughts. Recognition had one purpose, as she knew, better than most. Shushen's mother had looked uncomfortably like Nightfall when her little son had broken his fever to demand melon.

If I join with him, she thought, there will be children.

Little ones of promise and beauty, yet perhaps they would be no more than a breeze through her hair. And Cutter? Gone even faster.

But they had lost so many in the groundshake. Were they to be simply gone forever? Weren't they yet here, in hearts and minds?

She broached it with her mother one night, over a private dinner.

“Would you have had us?” she asked. “Knowing what was to come?”

Her mother paused, spoonful of food halfway to her mouth, then chewed and swallowed.

“I think,” she deliberated as she answered. “That all we have known, all we have lost, these last few moons, this has not been altogether terrible.”

Leetah stared into her food. Squash, with the meat of rabbit and ground squirrel. It wasn't bad.

“It has been a nightmare.”

Leetah stared at her mother. Toorah's eyes were elsewhere, perhaps focused on a small village in the heart of an explosion of mountains, on a small girl following a tall maiden, both waving dancing veils.

“I keep expecting to awaken in our old hut,” Toorah said. “For your father to tell me it was all a dream. I expect to walk in our old gardens, and to turn, and see my children-”

She wiped a her eyes angrily, then, as if she had flown like Savah and returned to her form, she turned back to Leetah, and, taking her hands, smiled firmly, looking like her old self.

“Yet for all of it,” she said. “For all the pain and the loss, for all our aches and sorrows, I would not return from it. I would not return from having two wonderful daughters, and seeing them grow into the maidens they were meant to be. None of it was a waste. And I am proud of you. Both of you.”

Leetah found herself crying.

“Oh, Mother,” she said. “I love you.”

“My little Leetah.”

Leetah thought of tiny hands, beads chiming as a small hand parted them carelessly, the dark of night pierced by a small lantern, nightmares that passed with her words, and a gentle touch. Hands touching with joy. Meeting across what had felt like an age, but had passed in an instant. There was a joy in the moment, after all, even after it passed.

She had so little joy right now, surely she could do this. She would not, she knew, be as devoted as Vurdah was already, nor as wise as Savah, nor as sweet as Toorah, but she knew she could do this.

...

“Heart to heart are lifemates bound,” Leetah hummed to herself tunelessly, as she poured water into a great pot to be boiled for drinking, one that every villager refilled over and over again over the great firepit at the centre of the new village. “Soul meets soul as eyes meet eyes.”

She turned away from her chores with a happy sigh, and raised her hand in a dance she had not stepped for moons.

“Maid, amongst those gathered round, there stands a new love- Oh!”

Sun Toucher chuckled softly as he caught her arm and helped to steady her. “Leetah, kitling, your dancing feet betray you!”

She blushed. “Hello, Father, Mother.”

“Our little cat sings a song,” Toorah teased her inability to carry a tune. “What's the occasion?”

She laughed, and whirled down a row of corn, recently planted in anticipation of the second harvest, beans and squash beginning to curl around young stalks.

“The fever is gone for good,” she told them. “Dodia woke up well this morning. She was the very last.”

And now Cutter would come. She was sure of it. He would come, and she would explain all to the Village, and they would go away to some secret place, and there would be a sharp scent of green growing things everywhere. There, the joining would be, the new life would begin. She was sure of it. They had both been patient, but everything would be well, now. The disgust on his face had been shock, but now he would return. He was very young, but Savah had been younger still, and a wonderful mother. All the Village was proof of it.

Sun Toucher laughed, and went on his way, but Toorah lingered.

“Daughter, that song,” she hesitated, then pushed on. “Is there-Is it Rayek?”

Leetah stopped. Suddenly, the past few weeks, no, a month and a half had passed, she realized, fell into focus.

“No,” she said, miserably.

“Oh,” Toorah sighed. “Who-”

Leetah turned around, and took her mother's hands.

“I cannot say,” she said. “I swore I would not.”

Toorah only looked more troubled.

“Kitling-” she began, but Leetah could not bear to see that look on her mother's face.

“I must go,” she said, gathering up her heavy skirts. “I have gathering to do.”

She grabbed a basket, and ran away.

...

The woods proved no panacea, though. Rather, she was more aware of Cutter's absence, here in his own place. He was no where to be seen, even as she looked through trees and into thickets, basket left idly at the edge of the woods.

Then, too, that look came back to her.

A soulname.

Something that she had lacked.

“Cutter?” She began to call out to him, in desperation. “Cutter!”

She had been calling for several minutes, when she felt someone behind her, and a soft voice she had rarely heard, but that she knew well, came from behind her.

“Leetah, what are you doing?”

She whirled, and stared at Nightfall. She wore a looser scarf today, a triangle tied loosely over her gold brown curls.

“Please, Nightfall,” Leetah did not know how to begin. “Are you my friend?”

“Of course,” Nightfall embraced her. “You saved Redlance! I could never forget that.”

“Then, tell me,” Leetah pleaded. “What is a soulname?”

Nightfall gaped at her, as if she had asked what the sun was.

“I-” she stammered. “I'm not sure what-I'll walk you back to your camp.”

She began to make her way through the trees, but Leetah stayed where she was, trying to pierce the dim, gray light of the woods. Nightfall sighed.

“I'll tell you on the way.”

An obvious bribe, but she took it. Nightfall held her hand, as if she were a child, through the dark woods.

“It's a name,” Nightfall chewed her lip, thoughtfully. “When we are near of age, we go alone to a secret place with our wolf-friends. We fast, or dream, and it just, it comes to us. It's a word, a sound, a feeling. It guards us, our most inner selves.”

“Guards you?” Leetah stared. “From what?”

“Oh,” Nightfall laughed. “From sending, from lovemates going too deep. It can be frightening. We only reveal it to lifemates, usually in Recognition-By the moons, Leetah, what's wrong?”

Leetah sat on a nearby log, and gave full vent to the tears that had begun to fall in Nightfall's telling. Her small friend took her gently into her arms.

“Leetah?”

She wept. And, for the first time in her long life, save for healing, she sent.

**My folk had all but forgotten the old ways, Nightfall. Save for Savah and I, we cannot send. We have no need for such protections.”

“But you knew-Oh, Timmorn's Blood,” Nightfall took Leetah's face in her hands. “You're Recognized! You and Cutter.”

Leetah nodded, beginning to feel her tears ebb away. In their place, there was a strange looseness and a misery.

“This is wonderful!”

Leetah stared at Nightfall, who was smiling like a sunset. “Wonderful?”

“You and Cutter, you will have a chief's cub!” Nightfall leapt from log, to tree, and back to the ground, light as a deer. “First Rainsong and Woodlock, then Clearbrook and One Eye! We'll have a whole clutch of cubs, and perhaps,” her smile grew softer, shyer. “My dear Redlance.”

“But he will not come to me!” Leetah exclaimed. “He stays apart. I thought, now the sickness passed, I thought he might be waiting for me.”

“But,” Nightfall looked confused. “Cutter's at the Holt. That's a far way for your folk to travel. You're not as fast, and you have no wolf-friend.”

It seemed impossible. She was weakened, even she, with unanswered Recognition. Her powers were reaching their limits.

“I must go to him,” she said. “Nightfall will you-”

“Away from her!” Rayek's spear would have cut Nightfall through, had she not been so swift. The maiden leapt away, into the trees, as Rayek burst forth from the brush around the village, brandishing another spear to replace the one he had thrown. “Daughter of jackals, away!”

“Rayek, stop!” Leetah cried, jumping up to defend her friend. “That is my friend, she-”

Nausea overtook her and the rest of what she was about to say was lost. Rayek lifted her easily into his arms, and Nightfall was gone.

**I will return for you,** was the last thing she heard, before she fell into a faint.

...

 

The first thing she saw when she woke up was Rayek, so she rolled over, and looked at the wall. It was plain, void of the many small marks and pictures that had gradually been accumulated by her former home.

“I don't want to see you,” she snapped when she felt his hand on her shoulder.

He hesitated, then spoke.

“How long have you known about the outsiders?”

He seldom caught her in a lie, even when they were children together, and she could feel the betrayal off him now.

But anger over her own heartsickness found a good target in her erstwhile lovemate.

“It doesn't matter now,” she hissed. “You've scared them away, you barbarian.”

He didn't lose his temper, as he might have done in the village.

“They've been watching us, haven't they?” He sighed. “Leetah-”

“I don't care.” she told him. “I don't care what you say, I don't care what you do, I don't care what you think!”

He let her outburst pass, stoically, then stood and left. She saw her mother in the corner of her hut, and rolled over, weeping again.

“My daughter,” Toorah stroked her hair. “It will be well.”

“It won't,” she sniffled. “He doesn't want me. He won't even come near me.”

Toorah made a soothing sound, and stroked her hair until she fell asleep.

...

Nightrunner was father to half the pack, brother to another quarter, and adored the rest unequivocally, although he and Briersting had an ongoing rivalry. He was the best wolf sender among them, so when he sent his troubles to the other wolves, they shared in his bond mate's sickly sweet, sweat covered smell, and came quickly to put their heads together.

Silvergrace sent a soft growl of disgust over them, distaste than anyone, elf or wolf, should be so foolish. She was going to nip Cutter for his lack of devotion to his mate.

Firecoat responded with a worshipful love of the healer who had saved Redlance, and Woodshaver concurred.

Briersting, who, for all his irritating ways, was undeniably clever, sent an image in return of Redlance as he had been, strapped onto Firecoat's back.

Nightrunner wanted to dismiss it, but it was a good idea. In the end, they all agreed, and Woodshaver went to his elf-friend's den to collect the harness.

The only problem, Nightrunner though, would be getting someone to help strap the maiden in.

Trollhammer wasn't there. He and his elf friend, and her lovemate, were away in the woods, chasing a buck that was nearing his life's end, but still had enough to make the hunt a challenge. Bristlebrush was with them, though the leg he favoured was still weak it had nearly healed.

...

When she awoke again, it was night. She felt feverish, weak, but there was a comforting weight at her back, and a familiar scent.

She rolled over. The wolf, Nightrunner, was lying beside her, with a strange, easy look on his face. He wriggled, as though to indicate his pleasure at seeing her awaken, then began to lick her cheek with his rough, red tongue. She squeaked, surprised, then froze, because his teeth were very sharp and very close to her face. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, and laid her head in his ruff of fur.

He allowed her this liberty, then ducked his head, and turned, picking up a tangle of leather straps, and depositing them in her lap.

Sickness made her stupid, and she puzzled at them for a moment. Then, slowly, the pattern of something slightly more substantial than a saddle became clear. There were straps for legs, and big, fur lined straps to frame the body of the wolf.

Of course that was when Rayek came in, and raised his spear, face a strange mask of fear and anger.

“Don't be an idiot,” Leetah told him, struggling with the belly strap. “Come and help me,”

...

Dewshine loved the hunt, the scent, the chase, the thrill when her dagger sank into the hide of a deer, when her arrows flew true. Scouter was more cautious, but when she cajoled him, or even used her status as elder to him, he fell in line, thankfully.

Now he was following her as eagerly as she flew ahead, Trollhammer's flanks shifting under her as if they were one, wolf and rider.

The buck wheeled suddenly, though, and Trollhammer wasn't as swift to shift as light, little Bristlebrush, so Dewshine had to duck under his hoof. It was well enough, though, and in moments, her dagger went into his side, cutting true to the heart. In moments, he was dead.

“Hah!” She stood over him, laughing. “Look at that. We can feel the tribe on that.”

“How will we get it back?” Scouter asked.

“Trollhammer could carry this by himself,” she said, cheerful with well deserved pride. “But we'll let Bristlebrush help.”

“Thanks,” her lovemate rolled his eyes. “Wonder what made it turn like that?”

“Oh, he was tired, I'll bet. Wanted to see if he could fight it out.”

“That's stupid, a buck like-Dewshine!”

She felt, rather than saw, the long-tooth paw that shot out from the shadows. A young male, driven off his father's range, she would later realize, starving, alone, afraid, desperate.

At the time, though, all she saw was the stars, then darkness, as her head bounced off a rock hidden in the long grass.

...

Rayek's lips were pursed with anger, but he did as she asked, even helping her on. Nightrunner, at first suspicious of a stranger, was soon charming him with bluff headbutts, and baby-like whimpers.

Leetah felt Rayek's powers, could almost see them shimmer around her as he floated her in place.

“You've grown stronger,” she remarked.”

“I've been practicing.”

She looked down at him, his square face, his lovely, golden eyes. He was someone, something, that didn't belong to this world, she thought. Too bright, too much.

“I'm sorry,” she said, as he strapped her into place.

“You've called me worse,” he told her, wryly.

Once they had been the groundquakes, shaking the village with their rows, fighting over small things, so they wouldn't break the larger apart, not knowing how truly fragile it was.

“I'm sorry for all of it,” she admitted. “You've always been my friend, but I haven't always been kind to you.”

“I haven't always been kind to you, either.”

It was a startling admission, and she stared at him. He laughed, somewhat bitterly.

“Maleen talks to me,” he said, softly. “Like you, she talks to me, not the hunter, not the magic user. She told me I wasn't always fair, to expect that you would simply fall into my arms, or to expect you to change, grow softer for my sake.”

“No,” she said, softly. “But I was as much to blame. I thought, with time...”

“And we thought we had all time,” he said.

Neither of them knowing how little time they had.

“If this barbarian,” Rayek said, finishing the last strap. “If he doesn't want to be father to the child you must carry, then I will. I won't leave you. Lifemate, or lovemate, that doesn't matter. You're my oldest friend.”

She smiled, and felt tears in her eyes again. He made a face, and wiped them away.

“I'll walk with you,” he offered.

She smiled, and nodded.

...

They only made it past the grey light of the edge of the woods, though, just a few tree lengths into the true, inner sanctum of the forest, when they were met, suddenly, by a tall, sullen elf, with long, auburn hair, and a bow nearly his own measure.

“You're the healer?” He asked, voice rough, as though with disuse.

She nodded, feeling a strange sense of urgency beyond her own life.

He looked her over, and she felt, strangely, as if he were cursing at someone, or something. Not her, but someone.

“We need your help,” he said, looking over them. He pointed at Rayek. “Climb up behind me. There's no time.”

Rayek glared at him. “My friend-”

The stranger interrupted.

“No time. Up!”

He reached out and dragged Rayek onto his wolf, then turned to Leetah.

**Hold on tight. We need to run.**

Then they were off, Nightrunner's lanky stride neatly matched by the new wolf. There was no consideration for the leaves, twigs, and branches that the stranger went through without so much as a flinch. Leetah found she didn't much care about them, either, but she saw Rayek's eyes glow with irritation, and then his powers sprang up before them, blasting their way through more neatly.

The emerged in a small clearing, where a huge tree, the biggest she had ever seen, covered with hollowed bolls, stood watch over a stream, and clusters of berry bushes. At the centre of the clearing, a small group of elves clustered.

A maiden separated herself from the group, and ran to them. Tears overflowed her large, purple eyes, and her small, square face seemed twisted in agony.

“Beloved.”

The tall stranger took her up in his arms.

**We're too late,** he sent.

The maiden nodded, quietly.

There was none of the denial that the Sun Folk had, trying to clear rocks from their village, begging the dead to awaken, speak, anything. This small tribe fought with all it had, but they took death in its stride. She could see that, even as the little crowd parted for her, to reveal the little, sad, tableau at its centre.

The maiden, clutched in the arms of one of the biggest elves she had ever seen, was so recently dead that her body had not yet lost the looseness, nor the warmth of life. She looked so peaceful, she might have been taken for a sleeper. Yet blood from the back of her skull was answered, Leetah felt within moments, with blood inside that had choked her brain to death.

“I am sorry,” she looked into the eyes of the father.

He shook his head, and sniffed back tears.

“I knew there was nothing,” he said. “She's stopped breathing almost as soon as Scouter put her in my hands. But Cutter was so sure, after you cured the water sickness.”

“Leetah, please!” Cutter was at her shoulder. “There must be something, anything! I'll do anything!”

He was suffering, too, she saw. Hollow cheeks, eyes shadowed with sleeplessness. He trembled, even as he stood.

“Leave her be, lad,” The father behind them sighed. “It's the Way.”

“It was my fault,” a boy who was sitting nearby said, putting his face in his hands.

“No,” Cutter sighed. “Treestump is right. It's no one's fault. It's just- It is what it is. It's the Way.”

A huge wolf, the biggest Leetah had seen yet, sniffed at the little corpse, whining. Then he threw back his head, and from his throat, there came the most mournful sound that she had ever heard, as though it held every drop of his grief.

Moments later, the strange elves, all, she could see now, pale as ghosts and dressed in the same soft leather, began to howl with him, and the wolves. It was a mourning wail, as lovely and wrenching as any that a Sun Villager ever gave.

Rayek had stayed outside the circle, she realized, looking on with sorrow. After all, an elf had died, where no elf should. She met his eyes from within. He nodded, then turned away, to go back through the woods.

“We'll take her to Blackfell's pack,” Treestump said. “He'll understand.”

“Better than anyone,” Cutter agreed. He had, consciously, or unconsciously, drawn Leetah to him, bringing her down to sit with him on a large root that had poked its way through the earth. “Poor little cousin.”

Leetah knew better than anyone that words meant nothing here. All she could do was put her hands on him, and let him be.

“There'll be new life, tonight,” Treestump said, looking at them. “For all one stubborn fool of a chief might try to deny it.”

Cutter glared at him. “Uncle.”  
“Indulge an old fool,” Treestump said, cradling his daughter. “Scouter and I'll be back by sunrise.”

They watched him leave. Everyone had drawn into small groups. Nightfall and Redlance were seated by a tree boll, clinging to each other. A small, miraculous family, with two small children, were joined by a baby-faced redhead, who was drawn into their arms. A silver-haired lad took to the trees, disappearing into the canopy of leaves. The archer who had come for her, and his mate, along with a tiny lad who bore resemblance to both of them, sat down by the river. A silvery maiden, with her odd, disfigured companion, joined them. She was clearly pregnant, some months past.

It was such a tiny bit of elfin life, here, in a place where Leetah had never dreamed her kind could survive. She tried to stand to better view them, then fell, dizzily, to the ground.

The archer was at her side in moments, along with his mate.

“Poor little thing,” the maiden said. She had a small cup full of water to Leetah's lips in moments.

“Enough, Strongbow.”

That was Cutter. He looked as if he were standing, too, but his hand clung tightly to a branch, white knuckled.

The silence grew suddenly oppressive, as if there were some fog in the air, something she couldn't see.

Cutter sighed, and sat down again.

“Sun elves sleep at night,” the maiden put the cup down. “Come, Leetah, you can tree in Cutter's den.”

“Cutter, you'd better go to bed, too.” the silver-haired lad jumped off his perch, landing lightly beside him. He winked broadly at Leetah. “He's been sick, you see.”

The maiden lifted Leetah unexpectedly into her arms.

“Poor little cubling,” she murmured, sounding like Toorah.

Cutter's den turned out to be a pile of furs in a small, wooden hollow, with a few small seats shaped out of the walls. It was clearly meant to be slept in rather than lived in, with one room, and no covering on the door.

Leetah had often thought of her hut as her refuge, seldom disturbed from her time alone save for the need for her services. She wondered where Cutter went for refuge, freedom from demands. Perhaps he had no where to go. Perhaps he didn't need it.

Strongbow and the silver-haired one brought Cutter in. He was sick, too, she realized. She had thought he would be too sturdy for that.

They laid him on the furs, next to her. The silver-haired one winked at her, and pulled the laces of his breeches out, leaving him clad in only a loincloth.

“I'm Skywise, by the way,” he said, as they left. “His better half.”

Cutter stared at her, bleary eyed, as lost as she supposed herself to be.

“Nightfall said,” he murmured, “She said you don't have soulnames.”  
She nodded, feeling faint.

“I'm sorry.”

He looked very young in his shame. She reached out and touched him.

Their joining was swift, to save their lives. Then sleep overtook them, too swiftly for them to do more than lay their heads as close to one another as they could. She clung to him, as though he would leave her in the night.

...

They woke hours later, still a tangle of limbs, but Leetah felt, for the first time in many eights of days, as if she had actually slept, fresh and ready for the morning.

It was still dark outside, but she saw Treestump, sitting between two wolves, looking pensively into the river. A few other Wolfriders were sitting near him, some even with their arms wrapped around him.

“I think we have slept but a little,” she told Cutter, feeling him move behind her.

He squinted at the sky. “Half the night.”

“Yes,” she turned back to him. He was twisting his fur blanket in his hands, and wouldn't look at her.

“I thought it meant there was something wrong,” he said finally. “I searched, and searched.”

“And you found only Leetah,” she nodded, not quite ready to let him off. “You could have asked me.”

“I know!” He snapped. “But it was so new. The humans, the fire, then your folk came. You walk in the sun, like humans do, you make houses, instead of shaping them.”

“And yet we are not humans,” she said, coolly. “We are your own kin. Driven far from our home by the world itself.”

Bit by bit, she told him the story. The groundquake, the mountains falling in. Wandering the desert, the hunger on the plains. Finding the new, green world here. Then, hesitantly, she spoke of ShenShen, beginning at her sister's birth, at the Flood and Flower, then her growth, her making for herself a place in this world, and of the rocks, crashing down on her.

“You understand,” Cutter said, softly. “Better than anyone. You were right, we are two, um, “cups” of water, from the same “pitcher”.”

He had a story, too, of a beast that leapt from the night, taking a full quarter of his tiny tribe with it, including a mother, and a father. Then, after some years, the human tribe that lived nearby destroying itself to destroy them.

“We were going to the Troll Caverns,” Cutter illustrated with his hands. “Then, the wind changed. The fire lit the human homes, it, I don't know, they choked on smoke, and so many,” he shuddered in remembered horror. “They died, first screaming, then silent. Then the storm came. Too late. They were gone.”

“They destroyed themselves.”

He shrugged. “I hoped, one day, they would make peace with us.”

Leetah sighed. “I must say, I am not terribly sorry they are gone. They hurt Redlance, and they would have killed all of you. My people, too, had they ever seen us.”

She glanced at him, this brave young elf, who had seen so much death and suffering. A sudden affection swept over her. 

“I like you,” she ruffled his hair. “My young barbarian.”

“Hey!” He ducked her hand, then caught it in his own. He stared at her, earnest and calm. “I like you, too.”

Leetah sighed and who knew what would have happened, had they not been interrupted. 

There was a soft commotion at the edge of the woods, the very height of the noise the Wolfriders seemed to be able to make. Leetah drew her dress back over her head, and laced her bodice as quickly as she could. Cutter pulled on his loincloth, then cursed Skywise in a number of ways upon finding his laces missing.

The Sun Folk, led by Rayek and Savah, came out of the woods, before shocked and amazed Wolfriders. Leetah's people, too, seemed no less amazed. The two groups stared at each other for a moment, then Savah stepped forward.

“Rayek told us of your great loss,” she said, and held up a basket. “We thought, perhaps, you might need these.”

It was food, to the astonishment of the Wolfriders. Bread, fruit, baked treats, meat, both smoked and freshly cooked(some of the forest elves looked slightly green at the latter, but happily availed themselves of the former.), well cooked beans, and squash, thinly sliced and baked, melons.

The Wolfriders thanked them shyly, even Cutter looked overwhelmed, and Redlance waved his hands, shaping chairs out of the very substance of the trees, to which Savah and Rayek were especially urged. 

“How wonderful,” the little mother bit into the melons just as eagerly as her mate did the cooked meat. “So good to have something new.”

“Everything tastes nice,” her mate agreed. 

“So, that's how!” Minyah laughed at Redlance in a motherly way. “Such a wonderful magic, we certainly could have used that many times.”

He blushed, chewing on a mouthful of sweet-sun. Nightfall eagerly told Minyah of all her lifemate's talents, pointing out berry bushes that, bare now, would bloom and bring fruit in the cold.

“You're going to need better than this,” the purple eyed maiden tugged at Ruffle's skirts, tattered from their travels, and nearly gone. “I have something in this colour, I was making it for, well, never mind, come with me, I think I can alter it for you.”

They returned shortly, and Leetah realized, after a moment, that the dress, merely a tunic with a ruffled skirt, had been meant for Dewshine. Ruffle wore it well, though she filled it out a bit more than its intended recipient would have.

“As soft as moth-cloth,” she said, admiringly. “How wonderful you are, Moonshade.”

Moonshade had returned to the food, and nodded in return, as if she had merely given Ruffel a handful of berries.

“Almost as soft as your skin,” Skywise told Ruffel, grinning when she blushed.

“Are you a High One?”

That was the child, Moonshade and Strongbow's boy, who was tugging on Savah's sleeve with greasy fingers.

“Dart!” Moonshade scolded him, and Strongbow wordlessly pulled the fabric out of his tiny hand.

“No need for that,” Savah smiled, and took the boy into her arms, as though she didn't see Moonshade flinch at her hands on him. “I am not a High One, my dear. They were gone many years before my time.”

“Where did you come from, then?”

Savah's eyes went distant as she told the story, one that Leetah had heard many times before, always at the Festival Of Flood And Flower, and sometimes just to hear it, to soothe a child to sleep, or for the comfort of it. How Savah and her family had crossed the desert, how they had built Sorrow's End, how they lived.

Only now Leetah was part of the story, and it didn't end where it had ended before, but continued, in a group of descendants, far braver and bolder than anyone had ever guessed, who left the dead behind to make new life in the land of their ancestors.

At some point in the telling, Cutter had taken her hand and was gripping it tightly. She could see Rayek watching them, and smiled at him. He didn't look very reassured, but nodded in return.

Later, Cutter and some of what the Wolfriders called elders, were engaged in very serious discussions with Savah, Minyah, and a few of the other Sun Folk. Rayek approached Leetah where she was tenderly caressing Trollhammer, who lay curled on his side, staring into space with a glassy eye.

“Dewshine was his elf-friend,” Leetah told Rayek. “The bond seems to be very deep.” 

She sat up with a sigh, and laid the wolf's head in her lap. “I wish I could make him sleep, but I fear it will not save his sorrow.”

Rayek knelt beside her, and brushed a hesitant hand over the wolf's flank. “Treestump said he'll be coming back to the village with us, for the newness of it. Minyah invited him.”

Leetah recalled that Minyah had lost her only child as well, in the mountain's collapse.

“Are you coming with us?”

Leetah hesitated, trying to form her thoughts out more clearly.

“Yes,” she looked at the woods. “To be honest, I think I could live here. As long as Cutter was here. But we don't truly know one another. I think it would be better to learn each other first, and I have responsibilities.”

Rayek glanced over his shoulder, back at Cutter, who was illustrating something to Savah with his hands.

“Will he be alright with that?”

Leetah sighed.

“You don't change, at least, old friend,” she said, tartly, then softened. “I think he will. He has responsibilities, too.”

Rayek nodded. 

“I'm going to have a talk with him,” he said, firmly. “Not to frighten him, don't look at me like that, just to warn him.”

“It's only fair, after all,” a soft voice murmured in Leetah's ear, as Rayek walked away. “After all, I'm going to talk to you, too.”

If Skywise had hoped to startle her, he must have been sadly disappointed. He didn't show it, though, he just lay down beside her, scratching Trollhammer's ears. A silver masked wolf joined them, and began licking Trollhammer's face.

“You don't scare easily,” Skywise observed. “That's good.”

“Oh?” she asked. 

“Cutter's got the manners of a troll,” he told her, face earnest in a way that seemed uncharacteristic. “But he likes you. And he's truly sorry for all of it.”

“I know,” Leetah nodded. “He already apologized.”

“Then why are you going?” Skywise asked. “You should stay here, he needs you.”

She sighed, feeling as if she were explaining something to a child.

“I'm a healer,” she said, slowly. “I have my own life, with my people. I cannot abandon them.”

“But you and he are lifemates,” Skywise objected. “Cutter said he was sorry, can't you give him another chance?”

“We're not lifemates,” she pointed out. “We Recognized, we joined, now we'll just have to see how things go.”

Suddenly irritated again, Leetah stood, shaking out her skirts.

“It isn't your concern, anyways.”

“Cutter is my chief.” his voice grew hard. “Your cub may well be chief after him. How is it not my concern?”

“It's my business,” she said, coldly. “Between me and Cutter.”

There had been couples in the Sun Village who had taken until well after the child's birth to form a union, and those who never had. No one had ever commented on it. It was just the way things were.

Trollhammer shook Skywise and the other wolf off, and followed her. She rubbed his shoulder, grateful for his company. Wolves, unlike zwoots, were intelligent enough to sense when there was trouble, and, unlike sand cats, gentle enough to offer comfort. She could almost understand why that long ago ancestor had lain down with them, although it still made her shudder.

She touched her stomach, reaching within herself.

Half a night wasn't long enough to even sense the beginnings of the child's growth, let alone if it would take after her, or Cutter. 

“Healer?”

The silver-haired maiden was behind her, looking pale and nervous. Her mate, a blunt-featured lad with a missing eye, was standing beside her, arm around her shoulder. 

“We're sorry to bother you,” the lad said. “But Clearbrook and I, we were wondering if you might see to her?”

“See to her?” Leetah asked. “Is there something wrong with the child?”

“No,” Clearbrook bit her lip, then added, “I'm not sure.”

Leetah sat them down on a nearby log. She looked at One-Eye's missing eye before she began, but, as he told her before she began, there was nothing she could do for him.

“We Recognized last spring,” Clearbrook said, softly, as Leetah extended her powers into the other lass's body, to the child within. “Maybe a moon's dance after the fire?”

“It's the third for both of us,” One-Eye said. “Clearbrook's fifth.”

Clearbrook was much older than her mate, Leetah noted. Yet, she was not half as old as Sun Toucher, or Toorah. She would likely never attain their ages.

“I felt a stillness within after Scouter was born.” Clearbrook told her. “I thought there would be no more cubs.”

There was a sense of weariness to that part of the body, Leetah noted, as if the womb were exhausted by its burden. The child seemed to be developing as normal children did, but there was the sense that it had not gone so well at first.

“There was blood,” One-Eye said, shuddering. “In the first moon after we Recognized. We never told anyone.”

“I thought we'd lost the cub,” Clearbrook said, softly. 

Something was going wrong, but it wasn't terrible as it might have seemed. The child would most likely live, and be healthy, though, perhaps, different from its fellows. At this point, she was deep enough in to sense it.

“It happens sometimes among Sun Folk, too,” she told them. “Even to my own sister, before birth. The child is generally well.”

She healed a small wound within Clearbrook, almost unnoticeable. She did not think it had been the cause of the bleeding, but it was leeching some energy away from the child.

“I think you truly will not have another child after this,” she said, sadly. “And you must eat plenty of red meat, the reddest, liver, for example, that will be best. And rest as often as you can, until the baby is born.”

“But if I do that, it will live, won't it?” Clearbrook asked, brows drawn together fearfully. 

“I think so, yes,” Leetah nodded. “But I want to see you as often as I am able to. Every eight of days will be best.”

“If you can save the cub, I'll fly her over the treetops to you,” One-Eye announced airily. Then he winked. “It took me six moons to move into Clearbrook's den after we Recognized.”

She smiled as she watched them go, then frowned, seeing Cutter and Skywise in close conversation. Cutter saw her watching, and rolled his eyes.

He and Nightrunner caught up to her, grinning. 

“Skywise likes to stick his nose in things.”

“Hm,” she acknowledged him. 

“Leetah.”

She glanced at Cutter, who looked very young in the moonlight.

“I'm going to ask Redlance to make your hut partly into a treehome,” he said, then added hurriedly. “If that's alright with you.”

She felt rather stupid, staring at him. 

“But why?”

He looked at the sky, which was beginning to grow pale blue with the early dawn. “Rayek said you're important to your folk.”

“You're important to yours,” she reminded him.

“We both have our own duties,” he agreed. “But now we'll have a cub together. I think, I think we should try things. Together.”

They walked a little further, and he stopped, putting her up onto Trollhammer. 

“He won't mind carrying you,” he explained, as he hopped onto Nightrunner. “He knows what you're carrying, after all.”

They rode together, through the burgeoning dawn.

“I don't like cooked meat,” he admitted shyly. “It tastes odd. Like fire.”

She suppressed a smile, realizing that her mother had cooked the meal. 

“I don't mind your tree home,” she told him. “Except it's so small. You have no privacy.”

“Of course not,” he said, as though the idea were alien. “That's what the woods are for.”

They fell into a silence, but this time a comfortable one, and she reached out and took his hand. It prompted a smile from him.

“I love the daylight,” she told him. “I miss my home. The Daystar ruled all of life, from morning until night, in stately order.”

“Here, we hide from the sun,” he murmured. “We hunt and howl by night, and life is sharp like a bright blade.”

The sun sent shots of bright pink over the sky, heralding morning. The woods grew thinner.

“I need to see Clearbrook,” she said softly. “Every eight of days. Will you come and bring me to her?”

“I think Trollhammer will bring you,” he said. “Treestump and Lionskin will need company in your home.”

He wiped some tears away, as if the memory returned too suddenly. Leetah squeezed his hand, and he smiled wetly.

“I want to be with you,” he told her. “And your people.”  
“I was thinking,” he continued, when she said nothing. “I could stay with you, in the village, that's what you call it, right? For an eight of days.”

“And perhaps,” she felt bolder, and absurdly proud of him for this plan. “I could come, and stay with you, and your folk. For an eight of days.”

“Yes!” Cutter leapt upon it. “After all, neither of our tribes is going anywhere.”

“Of course not,” Leetah agreed. 

“I'll get Redlance to make my den larger,” he added. “The tree is big, no reason we should live like squirrels.”

“I'll see if Korek can add some walls to my hut. No reason it should feel so big.”

They were still holding hands when they left the woods, coming into the village with the rising sun.

“Leetah!” Vurdah ran to her, laughing. “I heard the news! Is this he? One of the new elves?”

Nightrunner was more tolerant of the loud, laughing elves, as the Sun Folk crowded around them. Trollhammer whined and ducked behind his older packmate.

“Everyone will be back soon,” Leetah laughed and held up her hands to beg for space. “You can ask them your questions. I haven't slept long, and I want to catch up.”

“Oh, but you can't go to bed, yet,” Lutei grabbed her hands. “Come healer, come and see!”

“You as well, handsome one!” Behtia took Cutter's hands, leading him through the village. 

“Behold!” Vurdah pointed.

Ahdri, small, unassuming Ahdri, stood at the centre of a... swirling stone?

Columns rose out of the earth around her, , and within moments, there was the frameworks of a hut. A framework, Leetah realized, echoed all around them, that Korek and his workers were already filling in.

“Is it not wondrous, my dear?” 

He mother was there, beside her. Leetah leaned against Toorah, sighing. 

“Wondrous, Mother.”

“Is this your lifemate-to-be?” Toorah asked, before turning to the crowd. “Anatim, Leetah is returned!”

“I “see”,” her father made his perennial joke. “And who is the stranger with her?”

“I am Cutter,” Leetah felt, rather than saw her Recognized draw himself up like a strutter cock. “I'm chief to the Wolfriders.”

“Shade and sweet water to you, Cutter,” Her father smiled. “You are very welcome here.”

Leetah smiled, then yawned, overwhelmed. 

“How wonderful for Ahdri.” She tried to cover for herself, but her mother laughed, and she could see, from the corner of her eyes, Cutter rubbing his eyes to keep them open.

“You both belong in bed,” Toorah smiled. “I've aired your blankets, and changed your pillow covers.”

She and Sun Toucher led Leetah and Cutter to her hut, then tucked them both under the blankets, as if they were children, rather than soon to be parents.

“Dream sweetly, my children,” Her mother brushed her hair back before she left. “And be happy. Always.”

...

_Sixteen Days After The Great Quake, Two Months Prior Sun Folk Arriving In The Forest_

He was dying, Osek realized. A bleak thought, in a long, and painful life. He had gone as far as he could, but there wasn't so much as a drop of water anywhere. The scant supply of food had run out days since, and he had been weak to start, aged by labour and torment.

The small cave provided shelter, but it would also make a fine grave. He smiled, thinking how Guttlekraw would have appreciated the efficiency.

He didn't know how long he had been lying there. A day, two? The cave entrance grew dark again and he though, probably, it was two. This was the second night.

Then an arm, miraculously, an arm wrapped around him, and a maiden's voice, firm, but gentle, spoke in his ear.

“Up you come, elder. You're not finished yet.”

Water, cool, and, he thought, possibly clear and clean, although it could have been sewage for all he cared, poured into his mouth. He choked, then gulped greedily.

It took perhaps a day. She lit a fire at the entrance, and went in and out. He heard the baby cry, rather than saw it, but she hushed it with the same brisk efficiency she used to bring him cups of broth, and more water, and to carry him to the cave entrance when he needed to relieve himself.

“My name's Shen Shen,” she told him, when he began to regain his sense. “And you?”

“Osek,” he said, still feeling slightly dazed. 

She grinned at him, but it was somewhat hard. “You have no idea how good it is to meet you, Osek.”

She picked the baby up, and began nursing it.

“Are there others?” surely she couldn't be all by herself. There must be a lifemate, someone else.

“You and I might be the only elves left in the world,” she told him, slightly bitterly. “And Ahleki, I suppose.”

This was the baby, he realized.

“Surely, there must be some others,” he protested. 

“If I'd come across you three days before, there would have been Marek,” Shen Shen sniffed, and rubbed at a tear that leaked from her stubborn eyes. “But something went wrong when Ahleki was born. Now it's just us.”

She was maimed, he realized. Half her left leg was gone from above the knee, and it was a recent injury, judging by the scent of burnt flesh and salves leaking from beneath her bandages.

“I suppose it might be better to say there are two elves left in the world,” he joked, indicating their shared injuries. “Including us and Ahleki.”

She laughed, as harsh and bitter as a raven.

“In truth,” he told her. “There's at least one more. My friend, Ekuar, he's held captive by trolls, beneath the stones. I escaped to seek help.”

“I wouldn't be much help,” she said, softly. “There were others, but after the ground-quake, they were gone. We followed the trail as long as we could, but there was a sandstorm. And then Ahleki was born. So we lost them.”

He sighed.

“But your folk,” she looked at him curiously. “They're not my folk, are they?”

Shen Shen was small, with brown skin, and the healthy flesh of those who lived outside, in the sun, very well suited to the huge, burning wasteland they were in.

“I think not,” he agreed. “My people come from a place where the water is solid with cold, and the sun is too weak to feel.”

“So perhaps there are others,” Shen Shen put the sleeping Ahleki down, in a sling, and crouched, grabbing a crutch as she did so. “Not your folk, or mine.”

Osek tried to stand and found he was incapable, due to the low roof. Shen Shen laughed, lightly, and led him out of the cave. The sun was truly setting now, and there was a huge beast with them, a tall, graceless thing, with large, dark eyes, and a hump.

“You go up, first,” she made him a stepping stool with her hands. “Then I'll ride in front.

The beast was big enough that its huge back, covered with a rough saddle, practically made a bed.

“Rest a little more, elder,” Shen Shen urged him, pulling a blanket, stained, and smelling of sweat, from a basket on the side of the saddle. “I think we'll need all our strength for this quest.”

<O>

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this is an alternate universe, based on the idea of a role reversal. I've tried to mitigate much of Wendy Pini's scientific inaccuracies re: wolves(well, she only had seventies science to work with). Thank you.


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